After a series of grueling bouts and countless injuries that left his body a broken mess, Alessio Sakara considered calling it quits.

An ACL surgery this past July was nearly the final nail in the Italian fighter's MMA coffin.

But Sakara, who now meets fellow middleweight contender Brian Stann at Saturday's UFC on FUEL TV 2 event, told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) encouragement from friends and family made him realize he couldn't give up on his dream.

So Sakara (15-8 MMA, 6-5 UFC) and Stann (11-4 MMA, 5-3 UFC) now clash at Stockholm's Ericsson Globe Arena. Their bout is part of Saturday's FUEL TV-televised main card following prelims on Facebook.

Honestly, Sakara can take a decision here. Stann is good, but Steven Cantwell tuned him up pretty bad in their second meeting, and could have done so in the first if he wasn't scared. Sakara could estabslish his range early and pick Stann apart here. I don't think it happens too often, but not outside the realm of possibility.

On a side note, Sakara has been cursed/ involved in weird fights since day one. Just look at this rundown:

I remember his debut when Ron Faircloth booted him in the balls so bad he couldn't continue. Not a good way to start your career.

His fight with Elvis Sinosic set a scoring record at the time because he had two 10-8 rounds.

Against Drew McFedries, he was absolutely destroying him for 4 minutes and got put to sleep with a JAB.

His fight with Vilimaki, he beat the piss out of him and jumped on the cage to celebrate before the ref called it, so he can climb back down and knock him out again.

Against James Lee, Lee threw out his back on the first takedown and was fighting crippled for the entire minute and a half.

Lot of weird little details in his career.

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